Morning.

Moi.

Basics.

A Life Worth Living.

Musac.

Friday, September 27, 2013

11:30 PM

WE'VE BEEN THROUGH SO MUCH SHT, DEACTIVATED LASERS WITH MY DICK

ahhhh man, Im so glad I brought along my old ipod. Ancient and chunky as fuck even back in the day haha. I think I got it when I was in year 8 and it's been my sturdy baby ever since. It's got so much music on there that I've lost from computers over the years xD I brought it with me on the tours I did alone in the desert and ahhhh <3 music. It's beautiful. Rocking out in my own little bubble to SOAD watching the sand dunes go past. Lol but I haven't been holding back here, just dancing in my seat and mouthing all the lyrics XD lol what mikel said to me before leaving has really stuck with me and I'm clinging onto that to dear life. Who gives a fuck, you're in another country and you're never going to see them again.

Anyway, I'm on the 2nd flight of the day, 10th in the last 3 weeks I think. I'm really getting over this shit, lol the god damn snack boxes are always the same and because it's still the same month all the mags are the same too =.= I'm flying back with mumsy to Santiago at the moment, we spent the week in Peru. This flight back has been the longest so far though, but only because there's heaps of waiting time inbetween flights. We flew from Cuzco to Lima and then had to wait 8 hours in the airport for the flight from Lima to Santiago. We considered going out and exploring a tiny bit in Lima because we didn't see it at all this week but I wasn't game. With our luck I'm sure we would have gotten rolled or missed our flight somehow. Instead we just killed time, luckily Limas airports been the best one we've been to so far in South America. Main time killer was getting mah nails diddddd, and pedicure and foot massage lol. My nails looked feral, I got them done for one of the first times before leaving and they'd grown out heaps. Oh and finally had maccas lol, tasted exactly the same, even the packaging was the same which was nice ^.^ It's tasted different every time I've gone to other countries.

SO PERU. We landed Sunday night and it was already dark so we just wondered out and found dinner. Cuzco is really high up, lol I'm heaps shit with stats, I NEED KURT. So altitude sickness was a thing =.= I felt like crap as soon as we landed. This heavy feeling and headache. ick. Lol we grabbed the first coca leaves we found in a bowl at a tourist stand haha. You're supposed to suck on them to lower your blood pressure or something, they sell heaps of different lollies and gums, teas and chocolates with coca extract to help but I have a feeling it's mostly a gimmic. Any kind of movement made your heart race, even tossing around in bed while I was half asleep made me feel like I had just finished working out lol. YAY incognito excercise. I acclimatised fairly quickly but breathlessness on exertion and racing heart never changed, but I noticed it was the same for the locals too. Less oxygen up there so I guess your body never really will fully adjust, it needs what it needs. Lol when we were on our domestic flight today there was an add for some fancy hotel in Cuzco that said they had oxygenated rooms LOL. That would have been nice. Or you know, maybe a window in our room *twitch*

Before coming to Peru i started researching a little and looked up our hotel. We had booked everything through Intrepid which is an Aussie tour company and we did it really rushed so we pretty much just let them do everything and didn't double check anthing. So the day before fying I'm reading the hotel reviews and farkkk where they bad lol I was kinda scared to go but i decided not to tell mum coz she had been a whiny bitch this entire trip. (in fairness to her she's been hella sick but man she's a brat). We got there and it really wasn't that bad. Free wifi and I'm happy lol, seriously though, after staying in hotels in europe and a hostel in the cross practically anything is heavenly. Our first night we Ate at some swanky restaurant and the food was hella tasty, lots of blends of ingredients, argh that salad! goats cheese, caramelised pecans, vinagret, nomssss (plus ur usual salad crap). Pretty sure I had alpaca that night too but I had it a few nights I was there, tasted a bit like kangaroo, it's lean and kinda beefy.

The next day we checked out and went on our first tour which was to the Sacred Valley. TBH I don't even know the names of a lot of the places we stopped at, like the small towns along the way and market stalls but it was pretty. The main event was the Pisaq ruins which involved a lot of stairs, maybe like....7 flights of stairs up a mountain. Normal sized steps though and neat so it's not like we were trying to get through rocks and shit. Mum gave up hlalf way lol, Then the tour guide left us at a train station and we got a train to the town of machupicchu which is near the ruins that you always see in pics. t was already dark when we boarded the train so we didnt see anything. It was raining when we got there and we werre meant to get picked up nby our tour guide but no one was there D= We knew that our hotel was on the same road as the train station so we asked a couple shop keepers if we were walking in the right direction and walked on in the rain and in the dark but we found it fairly quickly. Next problem though was that the hotel didn't have our names listed D= He was heaps sweet hough, obviously he realised we werre soaked and it was dark already and we hadn't made the resrvation ourselves so he called the tour company for us and it all got sorted in 30mins and we got our room ^.^ About 15mins later our tour guide rocked up to our hotel room all apologetic and told us that they had told her we were coming tomorrow but everyone was hella nice so no biggie. Mum was really sick at this point, she had a really bad earache and some kind of flu and she wasn't doing well with the alittude in general and blah she smokes way too much. I havent shared a room with her for a few years and she totally wheezes all night long now. Gah she's going to have emphazema hard out soon. So yeah her fitness just wasn't up to this shiz and our tour guide told us that machu picchu would be double what we had done that day in the sacred valley lol. I spent the night telling mum she couldn't miss going to machu Picchu! Not when she was only a 20min bus ride away but overnight I kept waking up from all the noise she was making in her sleep, she just wouldn't be able to hack it so I told her in the morning to just stay which she would have done anyway but I think she needed to hear me acknoweldge it too. We told the tour guide in the morning and she seemed freaked out and went running to get the local doc lol, she was such a sweetheart. Within 10mins we had the doctor in the hotel.

So since mum and me somehow had ended up with a private tour guide for machu picchu and she pulled out, it was just me XD It was awesome, she would explian everything and be really commanding to get photos of me in all the iconic spots ^.^ That place was fucking stunning. I'm so glad I went, but tbh it wasn't double of the sacred valley, it was probably easier because it wasn't one long flight of stairs. There was one bit right at the begining which was maybe 2 flights of stairs that were windy and uneven but after that it was always either flat ground or just a few steps here and there. Luckily the rain had cleared already and it was a beautful day and the tour guide even said it was looking empty and there wasn't that many tourists XD That place in mind blowing, how the fuck did they know so much shit D= Heaps kool. Lol I took sooooo many pics and then when I was back in Cuzco I found the most awesome leathbound photo album so I bought it. I didn't plan on printing pics but the album was so pretty I decided I may as well make one dedicated to Peru ^.^

Machu Picchu only took about 2 hours and the tour guide offered me to just chill up there for awhile but I decided to come back down to have lunch with mum. The tour guide was sooooooo nice though, she full called the doc to ask how mum was going and then called my mum at the hotel later that day and then instead of just leaving me at the bus station she walked me to my hotel and checked up on me. Total sweetheart. She was kool to talk to as well, I guess the kinds of tourists they get generally are a little different lol. There's a lot of dipshit aussies/americans who say the wierdest shit and just seem so clueless all the time. I think it's the culture shock but it ends up seeming like they;'re mocking everything even if they don't intend to. That or hella snobby South americans who are fucking rude and arrogant. Generalisations of course but she was wierded out by me haha but we talked heapssss and she started asking me about Aus and I was showing her pics and she told me about her kids and her life and stuff, she was so lovely <3

That's the day I ate Cuy! aka: Guniue Pig D= Lol it wasn't exactly something I was craving but it's been a Peruvian thing for centuries and I figured I should try it while I was around. They usually spit roast it which is how I had it. I didn't do my research for this one, lol I didn't think it through. I kinda figured it wold be cut up and look meaty...insteadI got a burnt rat on my plate, teeth and all o.o It looked pretty gross and I didn't know how to eat it lol so the dude asked if I wanted it cut up for me so I agreed which really was only a small help. I was kinda freaked to pick it up and really intimidated by it's two front teeth staring me in the face but I got over it and picked it up. I had no clue how to eat it and I couldn't really use utensils because there was hardly any meat, it was all around the edges of the carcas attached to the ribs so I just picked it up with my hands. There was maybe a mouthful of meat o.o It didn't taste very good but that was only because of how it was seasoned, they shoved a fucktonne of pesto on it and it was too overpowering. The meat itself kinda tasted like chicken thigh but a little dryer. Mum conviced me to try the meat from inside the head but that was hard. picking up it's head, with it's little ears and row of teeth in it's mouth o,O But again, I got over it and tried to eat some of it but it stil had it's spine and I couldn't get more than a fingernail sized piece of meat out which tasted like a really mild blood sausage (which I don't mind). I'm glad I tried it though ^.^

Later that day we got the train back to the town whose name I still can't pronouce, I would look it up but I'm on the plane...oytantutambo? It was daytime and it was beautiful but there was something about that train that made it suffocating, maybe because it was going to o slow? The country side we went past and drove past in the mini van that too us from that town back to Cuzco looked a lot like part of Chile that one of my gran-aunties lives in, about an hour away from La Serena where they grow all the pisco grapes. Lot's of hills, but nice and green. That whole area is really fertile and they said they have something like 300 kinds of potatoes o,O and heaps of corn. The corn there is fucking massive though, never tasted that =( Lot's and lots of farms that are still plowed by hand and with those ox with the wooden bar thingoes. Heavy work, long days, the tour guide said they work 6 days a week and on Sunday they go to church in the morning and then go into town and get wasted on pisco XD

That night we arrived back to our original hotel and they had changed our room and this one was even better ^.^ BUT NO WIFI noooooo, lol but most of the restaurants in Cuzco have free wifi XD Cuzco's pretty much just a tourist town so it was really safe and people constatnly asking us if we wanted to buy their beanies or paintings, silver jewlery or scarves. They're really chill though, they don't harass you like in other countries, polite no and they go away after a few more tries of seeling u shit. But u sure can haggle them down by more than 34 of what they originally asked. I don't like buying shit but mums a sucker for that crap, not my style and I don't like buying souvenirs but she got plenty of little knick knacks.

We had Wed/Thur in Cuzco and then had to fly out Friday but I got hellllla sick wed. I was feeling kinda lethargic in the morning and not hungry but mum wanted to go get lunch so she draged me along. I threw up in the restaurant =.= In the toilet of course =P lol but we went back to the hotel after that and I just slept all arvo and night and mum forced me out thursday lol. I ate a slice of toast for breakfast but erghhh, did not feel okay and still felt weak but mum was all excited because there was a protest going on outside. They sure do their protests early in Peru though o,O They started at like 8.30am and we caught up with them again at 11am and they were still going around the city. They were demanding a lower cost of living in Cuzco, it's one of the more expensive cities because of the tourism there and I think a few other people were asking for other things like no airplanes at night. It was interesting though, 99% of the portesters were all old, like grown ups. I don't think I even saw 10 young people. There was also heaps of ladies who came down in traditional dress with alpacas and baby sheep to take pics with toursists so I got a few XD SOOOO CUTEEEEE

Again we spent most the day in the hotel and came out for lunch and dinner but I so wasn't up for it. Lol we didn't go to any museums, didn't go in the massive old churches, or to the markets, but we walked around the main plaza a bunch. Oh wellllll. And now here we are, on the plane. I'm feeling a lot better but I still get the feeling of wanting to upchuck every now and then but I haven't.

Hmm what else. As a generalisation, the people in Cuzco were heaps nice and have like a humble vibe. Chileans generally are fucking arrogant pricks who are always trying to show each other up and don't take kindly to people who don't act that way (which is why they fucking hate Peruvians). It's been kinda ergh for me in Chile, it doesn't really matter coz I don't need to interact with many people other than family really and those who I have talked to are more chill because they've been musoes or buskers, but people don't like that I'm not loud and heaps chatty and pushy. I've had one cousin tell me off for it a few times already, he says I need to come back to Aus more chilean, but I suppose tha't just me, I'm the same in aus haha. More introverted than not but meh. Fuck him. If I spoke my mind all the time I'd be fighting with people all the time.

Hmm anddddd who the fuck knew, there's a whole high fashion Alpaca industry o,O

Blah once we land in Santiago it's going to be about 4am and our next domestic flight isn't until 1030am =(

blah. I should probs try to sleep.

Sunday, September 22, 2013

3:30 PM

It's been a little while since I last posted, busy week. I'm on yet another plane, I'm getting over this airport buisness. I'm on my second flight for today, currently on the way to Cuzco, Peru. The two planes from today have been pretty good, much more leg room but no inflight entertainment but who needs that crap when most people have smartphones, tablets and laptops these days.

So i think the last I posted I was still in San Pedro De Atacama (a small desert tourist town in the north of Chile). We went there for the weekend and met up with my mums busker friend Ricardo. Last time I went I turned 18 that night and this time we landed for Ricardo's 28th birthday so as soon as we got unpacked we crossed the road and went to his place for his birthday party. He's a sweetheart and organised the airport transfer for us and hostel because mum couldn't find any places that were available (which I know is bullshit and she musnt of tried very hard because that town is drowning in hostels). The last time we came we actually stayed in Ricardo's place which wasn't really a home lol, it was an unfinished construction site that had three stand alone rooms. One was a toilet that only had running water during daylight and he used one room as his bedroom but it was just a matress on the floor and his suitcase. I liked staying with him last time, it felt authentic haha. He works as a waiter during the day in one the multiple restaurants in the town and at night he busks with his friends. I never know how to say what style it is in english but in spanish it's called musica andina. Think panpipes, guitars, bombos and charangos. He was telling me that it's the only town in Chile where a musician could make a living from busking because of the amount of tourists. Anyway, this time he organised for us to stay across from the new place he's staying at which is also similar to his last place, standalone rooms on a plot of land. The hostel was beautiful, hostels here in Chile have a totally different feel to what I was expecting: kings cross backpackers. We had a private room with an ensuite and had that beutiful rustic/adobe architecture that San Pedro is known for.

So that first night we went to his room which really wasn't built to accomodate that many people haha. It was just big enough though, he had his bed in there and a couch and a shelf with all his instruments scattered around. All his muso friends were there plus a bunch of chicks and the whole night was spent with different people taking turns playing guitar and group singalongs and drinking. It was fun, the people there are so different. They were all about my age and most of them free-spirits who had left their hometowns to persue a more chill lifestyle, trying to find themsevles and whatnot =P Most of them worked as tourist guides or restaurant/hotel workers. Thing is, most of them come from fairly well off familys, most people in Chile can't afford to just pick up and leave like that. Mum went on a few schpeels about how they're hippies with money, so the complete opposite of what they once were and basically kept calling them posers lol. Which is kinda true in a way, they dress and act all boho, they give up their riches but in the end they have mummy and daddy to send them money when they need it. Quite a few of them had travelled heaps to different countries which is totally unheard of amoung your average Chilean. They were interesting people and generally just want to have a good time.

While I was in San Pedro i did all the tours I could and dearlord is that place beautiful. Harsh weather though but that's expected of desert conditions. One of the tours I did to the geysers we had -11 degrees in the morning and by 2pm we were at 35 degrees lol. Highlight of that weekend trip was going to the hot spring!! I was heaps devo after my tour group forgot to pick me up and I was over going but mum booked me another tour with a different company for the next day and it worked out even better because I ended up going to a different hot spring which was 1000 times prettier than the one the majority of tours take you to. It was called El Geyser Blanco and we had to hike down and it was like a river. I was expecting a small body of water or something but yeah, in the little section we got to swim in there was little cracks in the earth where the bubbles would come up from and burn the fuck out of your ass but it was awesomeeeee. The water was 42 degrees and so hard to get into because it was only about 10 degrees outside lol I was the only one wearing shorts but it really wasn't that cold at that point. Seriously stunning. Lol if I was ever to get married, I would want to be proposed to in a place like that <3

Other things that happened wereeeee, hmm. Mum twisted her ankle and dislocated her finger on the first stop of the first tour so I did the rest on my own which was much better ^.^

There was lots of awesome restuarants, and some terrible. I ate guanco! Which is a relative of the llama, it tasted a lot like goat. Heaps of quinoa as well. The food there was a lot better prepared than in Santiago or La Serena, all the toursits lol.

Oh we're already landing. Boo I haven't even started on what happened when I got back to La Serena XD

Anyway I'll keep going from the hotel.

And I'm at the hotel!

So as I was saying, San Pedro wa beautiful and sharing with Ricardo and his muso friends made the trip special. I'm glad mums got contacts in heaps of places, just touring is boring so hopefully here in Peru we do okay despite not knowing anyone.

When we left San Pedro we had to stay 2 days/1 night in Santiago to go pick up my passport from the Brazilian Consulate and try to buy a few more things + get my Cuban tourist visa card sorted. Mum was a ball of nerves again, getting over that attitude now =.= She always used to be in charge and in control but she's just lost it in the last couple years. I dislike seeing her act so incompetent because I know what she's capable of but hey maybe she is just getting old...but come onnnn, she's only 44. Everything ended up working out in Santiago luckily with no hiccups this time. We stayed at that same hostel because it was so centrally located.

We went to this mall in one of the more affluent neighborhood and holyyyyymcrap. Like I keep saying, this country is mental. Its so wierd seeing the extremes. It was called Mall Sport so most of the shops were hiking/sporting/active gear. It was only 2 floors but it was hella kool, it had an indoor high ropes course, indoor go-karting, toddlers play area with mechanised inflatable rides, indoor rock climbing, indoor remote-control race track, hiring out of rollerskates and there was more outside D= Outside they had constructed a pool to canoe in, and they also had a skate park and wave/surf pool. It's just so odddddd seeing how differently the wealthy people look, speak and behave compared to the masses. I went there to buy crocs *gags* I was reading that in Costa Rica hiking shoes weren't always ideal because there's a lot of water activities and rain and shoes never dry, so I bought some ballet flats. While I was there I figured I may as well get my main backpack and daypack. Unfortunatly I wasn't able to find a hybrid backpack here that had a detachable daypack but oh well. I've been using it since yesterday and damn it's hard on the shoulders, I was debating for ages if I should just stay with a suitcase but a few of the reviews of the tours said suitcases made life harder what with shitty roads and no one around to help you during transfers and things.

While we were in Santiago we also met up with my uncle and aunty again, the musicians. My uncle plays the violin and his wife plays the Cello. I'm excited, they finally offered to let me stay the night with them the day before I have to fly to Cuba so YAY I don't need to pay for a hotel. They also invited me to watch them perform which just happens to be the night before I fly out xD They took us to this fantastic Italian restaurant which was such a good change of pace, I'm getting over eating the same thing over and over again. The lasagne omg, best I've had in over a decade, and the bread so crunchy and soft on the inside <3
I like my uncle and aunt, they're sooo...authentically boho. Intellectuals who like art, even their home reflects it, covered in paintings done by my aunt and all these little knick knacks.

As soon as we flew back into La Serena we continued with the nonstop. That same night, even though we had been up since 6am, we went to La Pampilla at like midnight. It's chile's biggest festival held to celebrate the 18th of september, Chiles Independence day. People reallllly go nuts for this, there's some INTENSE patriotism at work here. I've been here since the 4th of Sept and already there was flags everywhere, houses, cars, street signs. Everywhere you go they're playing quecas which is officially Chile's national music/dance but it's not really played much throughout the year, reggeaton and cumbia tends to dominate more. So I went with my mum and I was so not in the mood, I was heaps tired and meh. So many people, but in the last week I ended up going 3 seperate times. It's a nice environment though, so much less restricted than in Australia. They're not fussy with id for alcohol, and everyone is drinking all day and night and you can take your drinks anywhere in the fest and it's not a problem. Lol the amount of weed I could I smell in the air. There are cops patroling but as long as you're not starting shit they don't care, for this one week at least. They have heaps of stalls where they sell clothes/accessories for cheaper, and a bajillion food stalls to choose from. Plus they have a few different stages/tents set up to dance in. SO MUCH FUN. Oh and a big rides section but I never went to it while the rides were open.

We spent the whole week with family. Wednesday 18th we went to my other cousins place and they had a big family bbq which was lovely. I never get to go to family events in Aus. It's why I've always enjoyed going to friends/boyfriends family functions. I like seeing the dynamics. Lot's of drinking all week, I see where I get it from haha...but tbh I think it's just a Chilean thing in general. Drink of choice has been Terremotos : earthquakes. Apparently it's gotten hugely trendy in the last 2 years and originated from the south of chile. I explained in a previous post that it was wine with ice cream but i was wrongggg. It's pinapple ice cream, grenadine and this type of sweet white wine called pipeño. Traditionally what has always been drunk for the 18th was a drink called Chicha which I also tried of course. It's like a really sweet wine. Wiki says: In Chile there are two main types of chicha: apple chicha produced in southern Chile and grape chicha produced in central Chile. Both are alcoholic beverages with no distillation, only fermentation. Chicha is mostly consumed in the countryside and during festivities, such as Fiestas Patrias on September 18. Chicha is usually not found on formal supermarkets unless close to September 18

There's been sooo much meat this week D= Staples of this week: Asado, chorizo, fierritos (shishkebabs), empanadas. Alwaysss with the same sides of garden salad, rice, chips or potatoe salad (just potatoes and mayo). Tasty but gahhh. ALWAYS THE SAME. I tried something I hadn't seen before which was tasty but I forget what it was called, they fry up sausages, onion and olives on a grill and then give that to you with chips and a runny fried egg. IS GOOD. But I'm so glad I came in September, what better way to soak up what makes Chile unique than to come during September when everyone is celebrating what it is to be Chilean.

The best one though was Friday night. We went to La Pampilla with some cousins and their friends. SUCH A GOOD NIGHT. The day started off poorly though coz I had to visit my grandad on my dad's side for his birthday. Obviously I'm not close to them but I did okay the other night and it was just meant to be dnner and then I knew I was going to have to bail to go to the fest. They invited my mum along to his birthday, my grandparents have some fucked up notion that my mum is still their daughter in law and just make shit awkward. A lot of my dads brothers/sisters were there and that family just ...is fuckery. Especially one of my auntys. She started saying my family were traitors for having left the country which did not fly with my mum, that's hella insulting after everything that my family fought for and did to try and end the dictatorship. Especially coming from her, someone who did nothing until the system had already been desatablised after my family left, and after it was already legal to be affiliated with any kind of political party. She's a fucking cunt. Then it became a bitch fest about my dad which got worse and worse with my mum there. Just all sooooo inappropriate. With my aunty and mum arguing hardout for like an hour at the table with everyone just sitting there. Then Rommy, my aunty started going on about how it was my mums fault that my dad ended up with his current psychotic ladyfriend and that my mum should have tried harder and all this bullshit. There was soooo many low blows. Things that should just not have been discussed, including shaddy shit like mentions of prostitution =.= If you know me, you should know that I don't do confrontation so as expected I kept my mouth shut until Rommy was just being too much of a cunt and I started agreeing and backing up my mum but she just wouldnt listen or stop aggravating the sitch. Eventually my grandad half heartedly tried to change the subject but Rommy kept going so I excused myself and stormed off. It was all masively dramatic with me walking home alone crying and then my mum chasing after me in true latina style. So what I've gathered from that experience is: fuck my dads family, deleting and blocking on fb and I'll go visit my grandad a few more times before leaving as long as no one else is over.

Lol so I got back to the apartment where my cousins where all waiting to hang out and party and there I was, this crying wreck and went straight into the toilet and closed the door. They were really sweet though. After a little the mood litened. I didn't feel like going out but mum forced me and in the end I'm glad she did. My cousins arrn't very well off and despite mum giving us all money to go, they were still cheap asses the entire night which was bugging me at first but I just went with it and it all turned out okay. We snuck into the festival lol and then they wouldn't pay for drinks inside so we left again for the bottlo and snuck alco in and ended up drinking at the bleachers with all the other youngins. I was kinda annoyed and bored at this point because I just wanted to get into one of the fondas, which is where you dance but have to pay to get in. So we sat around drinking but that was still fun, there was soooo many people and a group of dudes playing the drums the enitre time and people dancing around them. Haha almost lost my mind when my cousins and their friends started freestyling and beatboxing haha. They come from the worst, most dangerous neighborhood in the area so they're all real...G *coughwestycough* and act all tough and shit haha it was fun. THEY WERE SO GOOD TOO. At one point one of their friends said he knew how to get into the biggest fonda so off we went and spent like 30mins trying to sneak in haha, which failed, thank god! He said we would have to jump a fence and even my cousins were like...errrrrrrr is she going to be able to do this, their friend was all, she'll be fineeee, it's only 1.5m high. BULLSHIT. When we got to the fence it was obvious I wouldn't be able to do that haha but luckily I didn't even have to attempt it because I saw a bunch of security sneakily watching us and stopped the guys from jumping before we got into trouble lol. The entire time though I was like, GAH i can pay for you! Eventually they finally let me pay but we still had to sneak the grog in haha which worked out fine and we danceddddd and it was lovely. The night wasn't over yet though lol.

I had gone outside with my cousin because he wanted to smoke and we were standing behind a truck and the area was pretty secluded and these two chicks came by and kicked us out for a little bit coz they wanted to pee. So when they were done we went back to our spot and these two massive dudes show up, clearly drunk and agro and started accusing my cousin of having touched one of the girls pussies D= and they started shoving into us but luckily the girls came back and pulled them away from us and they left. But damnnnn, my cousin was already drunk at this point and he lost it lol he was totally on edge and ready to fight and had a goddamn glass bottle up his sleeve the entire time as he's ranting about wanting to find them and glass them. Luckily it was like 5:30am by then and the Fonda had closed so we round up our group and headed for the taxi's while I tried to calm down my cousin. I just wanted to get him out of there quickly, he was too on edge and ready to start shit and there were fights breaking out everywhere. Luckily we made it out okay and then spent 30mins trying to get into the apartment because I didnt have the street key, eventually one of my cousins who stayed the night heard the rocks I was pelting at the wall and came down and opened the door for us. All in all though, killer night haha. I guess I need some drama to enjoy myself  =P

So then yesterday we flew into Santiago..AGAIN, and stayed at the hotel across from the airport which was lovelyyyy, and then in the morning today we flew to Peru. Gah we almost missed the connecting domestic flight to Cuzco though because there was only an hour between flights but we made ittttt. GAH the altitude though, you can really feel it up here. I still have a bit of a headache and your heart starts racing with really minimal exertion. I can't wait to come back down again. Last time I got back from the desert I felt so lite and fit after living at altitiude for the weekend hehe. This time we're like 1.5km up higher so it'll be good being back at a decent altitude. Tomorrow we do the sacred valley and tuesday machu picchu!!

As for now, mums napping and I'm going to do the same before we head off somewhere for dinner.

PS: seriously impressed if you managed to read all of that =P

FREE WIFI fuck yeahhhh. I'll be posting!
xx

Tuesday, September 17, 2013

8:35 PM

Lol they never came to get me yesterday! I sat there sitting in the cold from 4:30-5:45 and nada! Called the company and ended up on a tour to the altiplanic lagoons. It was pretty, saw wild vicuñas which are a cousin of the llama and I also saw flamingoes ^.^
The tour was kinda meh though, we got to the lagoons and couldn't walk down to them because they were closed off to visitors and the salt lake stank like a mofo. I was just tired and grumpy by the end of it. Easier than the Valle tours I did the day before though. In the arvo I met up with mum in the town plaza and got really shitty Peruvian food and then napped for 4 hours and went back out into town with mum for dinner with Ricardo and his fuckbuddy lady. Was so tired yesterday but mum signed me up to try go do the Geysers again and only slept 2 hours before today's tour *sigh*
Can't really sleep on the bus for some reason.

SO BUMMED about my cameras. I'm such a sped, I left all the charges back in Sydney and the universal adaptor I got less than a week ago is already broken =.=
iPhone pics for awhile. I'm really hoping I can sort something out before Peru.

Anyway I suppose I should try conserve my phone battery for pics today. I think the first stop is at a town somewhere from breakfast. I'm heaps pumped for the thermal waters though, they're meant to be 40* degrees inside though D= that sounds too hot lol this really is a place of extremes. This entire damn country. The first stop we're making is at the actual geysers which I was told to expect -15 to -10* weather o.O I don't know how cold it got yesterday but I was fine, wearing the same plus one extra top so I should be fineeeee.

I'll post soon and probs start gathering my pics on the plane ride to Santiago tomorrow so I can start uploading.

Xx




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:San Pedro De Atacama: Tour bus

Saturday, September 14, 2013

6:06 PM

It's almost 5am! Been up since 4 lol but I feel good with just 3 hrs sleep lol. I've been having sleeping longer than 3 or 4 hours at a time anyway. So!
I'm waiting out the front of our hostel to get picked up for a half day tour of Los Geysers Del Tatio. Mum decided not too coz she couldn't quite hack it yesterday and went back to the bus after the first stop + you know she also fell, dislocated her finger and looks like she's twisted both ankles but mostly her left =(
So I'm doing today alone, lol she kept asking me if I was okay going alone =.= bitchplease, I'm going to be alone for 2 months lol and this tour is picking me up right out the front door and taking me back after lol plus I know a handful of the locals here which is super helpful. I hope it doesn't suck when contiki starts because mums contacts have been what have made this trip special so far. Seeing how people actually live, and especially now that we're in a tourist town.

It's meant to be up to -10* Celsius D= and then by like 11am can get up to 30* Celsius. Lol so I've layered! Got me some over priced snow gloves yesterday which will be good for the south of chile too. It didn't even occur to me that there might be water activities in the desert so I didn't bring my swimmers! But Im brining shorts and a singlet to change into. Fuckyehhhh 40mins in the hot springs xD

Lol my face is all red from yesterday but I got some sunscreen. Seriously though mums a tard. Every time I try to do the smart thing she spazzes at me. She got annoyed at me for buying it =.= because it made her patchy once like 20 years ago, idiot. Or like when I want to be on time to anything she gets mad at me. She's impossible. I don't give a fuck if I'm waiting for ages for things coz I know shit generally does NOT run on time, everything from protests to hanging out with friends seems to be about an hour or 2 later than what was originally said lol. So that's where she gets it from I guess haha
But it was funny, we were walking with Ricardos x yesterday in town and we overhead people freaking coz they only had 5mins to be somewhere that was 5mins away lol and she was all like damn gringos always so punctual, they don't even know that the tourist guides are going to come at least 30mins late LOL
Regardless, I'd rather wait than panic and have to run for things or miss out all together.

I'm using my first iPod for music atm so I don't waste phone battery. Lol there's so much old music here xD

Any who! I'll try post a bit more later xx




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:23,San Pedro de Atacama,Chile

12:30 AM

I arrived in San Pedro de Atacama just before midnight Thursday so we've been here a full day now. This place is ridiculously beautiful in such a unique way <3 p="">I don't have much time, Im going to have to get up in 4 hours to do a tour by myself coz mum twisted her ankle during this arvo's one.

Summary?
Ricardo's 28th bday party was heaps sweet and musical
The stars are fucking incredible here, they actually twinkle
I didn't get altitude sickness XD
Food here is tastyyyy, I ate guanaco which is a type of llama.
My camera batterys both died and had issues with the universal charger =.= Most pics are from my iphone =(
I got sunburnt
I tried a 'cockroach' which is a shot the townspeople get from the bars if u say its ur bday, Ricardo had one so I had to try it! Tequila with coffee liquor set on fire XD

More on everything later ^.^

Thursday, September 12, 2013

8:30 PM

Ello lovlies, I'm onboard a plane again, towards the north of chile to a city called Callama. We're headed to the San Pedro De Atacama desert for the weekend. Mums busker friend we stayed with last time is celebrating his brithday tomorrow (Friday) so we figured this was perfect timing. Except I got hella sick yesterday =( I started getting a cold Tuesday night and it came down hard Wednesday so I had to miss the rememberance march for the 11 Sept (40 years since the military coup that lead to a 17 year long dictatorship and murder of President Allende). I was super bummed I missed it but instead I went to the doctor, she was heaps chatty and nice ^.^ I feel okay now, it was just a cold but sometimes my asthma flares up too and I didn't have any prednisone or antibiotics with me.

On the plus side I spent my day on Wedneday with my uncle who I hadn't seen in so long. I like him, he's my grandad's brother, the grandad I grew up with and he always reminds me of him. They sort of look alike and he even has similar gestures and ways of expressing himself, he's a sweet heart. We went with my mum and his and got lunch at La Caleta which is kind of like the fish market but with restaurants too. I was feeling heaps shit though, I had to start using my nebuliser again because I couldn't breath properly, it blows because the action of breathing is occuring but my lungs just aren't capturing any oxygen. Either way, soldiered on, hung out with my uncle and mum and then she went to the march and I went to the doctor with my uncle. OMG but while we were at lunch I got super excited, there was motherfucking SEA LIONS. I didn't ven know they had them in this part of Chile. This is my 5th time coming to Chile and this is the first time I see them here. There was so many! So that made my day haha, plus hanging with mmy uncle and his family after my docs appointment actually turned out nice. He has two daughters roughly my age but we didnt really get along last time. They're both enrolled nurses here in Chile so I talked for ages with the younger one about the differences so that was heaps interesting. I told her we should hang out so I think we might go out for drinks or something when I come back from Peru =)

So I've officially been in Chile for one week so far but bless the internet because it's preventing any home sickness. I've been skyping with the guys and ash, mums almost constantly skyping Marco (her husband) and with blogging, fb chat and uploading pics I'm keeping entertained at home when we've come back from our day out. I suppose we haven't really done any proper site seeing, just observing and trying to soak in with daily life here while we're in La Serena. It's heaps interesting how different some things are and there always seems to be something on, and someone to talk to. Everyone we've ever asked for help or advice has been heaps keen to help and as soon as you get chatting to people they're always keen to explain how things work here. It's been cool catching up with family and deffo feeling less anxious about the entire trip now. I was heaps worried I'd be lonely as fuck, but I've made two friends already who are heaps nice and heaps of my cousins want to hang out with me and take me places, I just havent had the time yet. So i feel pretty set now, I learnt how to catch the bus to the city's cbd and I have numbers for cabs and family members who are willing to hang out with me. I've igured out how to get to my grandparents place by walking there and I know where all the corner shops are. I've sorta figured out where most stuff is in the CBD of La Serena is and I have a little map now. Plus I looked up a couple tour things that I might pay for once mum leaves. There's ones that go to the pisco famrlands and the surround towns that are about an hour away from the apartment we're staying in, I've gone to one of the towns that way before and I'm probs going with mum for 2 days to stay with our uncle there.

So once she's gone I feel like I'll still be able to do stuff and I know where to go eat where it's cheap and tasty + we have a fully stocked kitchen and a massive grocerry store down the road incase I need to buy anything. I think the last things left to figure out before mum leaves in 4 weeks is where to get the bus to Coquimbo's CBD and how I'm meant to shut down the apartment and lock up once I leave. I think I'm going to have to store away all the bed linnen and make sure everythings clean and the gas is disconnected.

I still need to sort out some stuff for the rest of the tours though, I still need to buy a backpack which I think I might get Monday in Santiago when we go pick up my passport from the Brazilian consulate. I need to look up where to buy them though =S I was worried about packing for both extremes but I think I'll be right. This weekends trip I brought clothes to get changed every day for 5 days into a tiny carry on suitcase. So the backpack should be fine. I also neeeeeed, gloves for the south of Chile where we wil be in snowy/glacial conditions. I thought I packed my thermal leggings but I must have forgotten them =( I don't know how much I'll need them, I have normal leggings which don't seem that different to the thermals tbh =S I'm just going to need to layer up I guess. OH and I'm cringing at the idea but I'b getting crocs in Santiago too. They sell some that aren't as fugly but I was reading reviews of the costa rica tour I'm doing and everyone was saying it's wet/raining constantly and shoes don't have enough time to dry out. Hmmm I need a torch for the night rainforest walks. I think that's it.

Ha that was fast, we're ladning I gota put my laptop away.
byeeee

x

Wednesday, September 11, 2013

11:02 AM

IM ON THE BUS
LOLOLOL there was a clown who I saw hanging around the bus stop yesterday, and he just got on, we still haven't departed and he started making all these jokes about the people coming into the bus and calling out through the door to the street about the bus route, except saying funny names and places and offering extra services and play flirting with 'the girl at the back' which there is none.

He's heaps funny, white face, normal clothes and curly green yellow and blue wig. I wonder what he's going to do =S if he's staying, I'm sure he's going to ask for dosh at some point, right =S

Argh I feel a cold coming on D= my throats kinda sore and I've had a cough all day.

Oh one of the fire engines just left, the bus is out the front of the station.

Oh we're moving!
Clowns started a stand up routine xD

Bahaha he was funny =) it was just a short set, 3 stops long.
Oh chile ^.^ they have soooooooo many buskers here, and ART fuck. I finally went into coquimbos cbd today, we had only been going to La Serena since getting here and the street art <3 AHHH MANNN.

We just got back from finishing watching what we thought was going to be a doco, it turned out it was more of one guy walking around telling his story. The doco was about the political prisoners from the 80's in La Serena, the first ones. Mum knew all of them, she used to visit them and then my Aunty was one too.
The doco was actually about how two of the first fallen managed to escape and the whole story of how they did it, plus their living conditions. Tomorrow, wed 11 sept is going to mark 40 years of the military coup that lead this country into a fucking long ass dictatorship. We're going to go to a march/rally in memory of all the disappeared and fallen in the afternoon which will end in the cemetery where the unmarked graves are. Watching the doco is hard, I never lived any of this, I was born in aus but it's deeply ingrained into my history regardless. It's why I grew up in Australia and it just has a million implications and feelings attached for me.
It's been tough in a way, I grew up on stories of people's homes being invaded, torture, rebellion and that ideology imparted on me from an early age. Being here has odd moments, where I'm so happy to be here, but I'm also scared. Walking through the suburbs today, my mum telling me all the places she had to hide, the places they organised rallies, the houses of the people who would dob people in, pointing out the people who denied her help and then the people who did. I can't imagine what that must feel like for her. We had to speak to someone today who back then, wouldn't let my mum use his phone when the secret police came to our apartment and beat and kidnapped my Aunty.

The history of this place is so rich, and the culture so ingrained, so specifically Chilean. Australia, especially the west is such a melting pot. Blows my mind.

X.




- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Calle Cienfuegos,La Serena,Chile

Tuesday, September 10, 2013

8:42 AM

Yo!
I keep trying to blog today but I keep getting distracted, I try to every time we sit down to wait or in cabs but no lol.

It's 6pm on a monday here. My cousin Erica (2nd cousin: mums
llcousin) slept over last night. She's real sweet <3 poor thing has had one shocker of a life =( This side of the family isn't doing too well so we're trying to help out. Mum took her out to eat and the casino yesterday to try and distract her a little. Her daughter has 5 kids and she's in the middle of a separation and lost her job and her husbands a cunt. Meanwhile Erica's been doing it tough for the last 3 years, her mum was diagnosed with cancer and lasted about a year before passing away =( but while that was happening Erica was acting funny and everyone here assumed it was stress and were pissed at her for being a drama queen and argumentative while her mum was dying. Turns out all her personality changes during that time were actually because she had a brain tumour, her symptoms were getting worse and they finally decided something was up when one day she couldn't walk anymore. The tumour was really advanced and she needed urgent surgery but they don't have a lot of money here and through the public system she would have had to wait over a year. We sent money and she went to another city and had the surgery and rehab there. She was there for a few months in ICU, ventilated via a trachy and then had to relearn how to walk, talk and basically just function. That was 2 years ago and she's doing really well at the moment. The cancers still there but she's in remission. She has a slight hemiplegia now but she's completely independent and finally got approved for a disability pension but that's only 65,000 pesos a month which is like...$140 Aussie dollars maybe. It's not enough and her house is falling apart. She sows and makes little arts and crafts at the moment to regain her dexterity, they're beautiful! So she sells them for a bit of extra cash. She used to rent out a room but they left and looks like her daughter and 5 bubs are moving in at the end of the year. Oh and Erica lives with her son Brian as well who is about 19 years old and Erica is in her 50's.

So! Today, we went into the CBD in La Serena to run some errands for flights and things and then went and bought her new furniture for her room and we're organising for their roof to get done.
I was all excited today to eat 'completos' which are Chilean hot dogs but they add mayo, avocado and tomato. I ate them and then remembered I hate hot dogs. So I can't tell if they were bad or I just don't like them lol
OH but I got coochooflis...that spellings probs all wrong. The street vendors sell them, their like a pastry with caramel inside FUCK they were tasty, I forgot how much better the caramel is here. It's not really caramel, it's condensed milk that's been boiled in a container and turns into this brownish colour. Delicious xD

I'm at their place at the moment waiting for my cousin Brian to come back with some tea ^.^

Oh he's here.
We're off to the mall to look for clothes for Erica.

Yesterday was Sunday, I slept like an hour coz I went to this musicians party thing the night before and then Sunday had to visit my grandparents. Lol massive hangover. But I didn't do much else, went to visit them, brought a cake along and had lunch with them. Then walked back to the apartment and finally uploaded some of the photos xD ARGH but I forgot all the charges *doi* problem solved today, we found a universal camera battery charger.

(Paused: we're in the mall, I hate shopping =.= but this is exactly like aus, maybe better. The clothes in the boutiques are way nice here than back home though.)

I hate shoppingggggg. So Saturday! We finally went grocery shopping. Groceries are like half the price, and alco/smokes are like 1/4 of the price xD
Then we got ready and went to eat at our favourite seafood restaurant infront of the beach 'Mar Adentro'. It was devo, the food was shit and the service was worse =( although I enjoyed my canaries span ado. Most places don't sell them here but they're hella tasty, it's like popcorn chicken but prawns.

Then we quickly went to my cousins place Erica and saw them for the first time and sole was there with all her kids and then off we went to la peña. It's like a party but not, a cultural group hires a hall and there's traditional dancing/music and people drink and dance. I had so much fun xD I made friends with this chick Paulini and we drank all night together and I talked to a lot of people which felt good after being ushered around by mum like some kind of mute for the last couple of days. She introduces me but doesn't let me talk usually lol she tells them my story and then we're done =.=

We had this drink called un teremoto, an earthquake. It's wine with ice cream. Apparently it's a Chilean thing =S it was good xD

Anyway I should go!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Calle Michimalongo,La Serena,Chile

Monday, September 9, 2013

2:01 PM

I'm in a cab so I have a tiny minute to try and smash out what's been happening. It's only been two nights and 2 days in Coquimbo/La Serena so far. It's now Saturday evening, 7pm and we're on our way to Mar Adentro. It was our favourite seafood restaurant on the beach here xD I hope it's not a let down coz yesterday's dinner was an awesome surprise, I had forgotten how good the food/drinks are here AND CHEAP.

So the last time I left off we were lagging on our replacement domestic flight. We eventually got to La Serena airport an hour late but I didn't give a fuck at that point, we didn't really have to be anywhere and we had already missed the first flight *sigh*

We got a cab to the apartment and mums mates from highschool were waiting for us. Mum had organised for the electricity to be turned on and the apartment cleaned by them (which was a hassle, they charge us a ridic amount and changed all the locks coz the key we sent never got there). We went up and chilled with the two brothers who both have known mum since back in the day. Their friendship is interesting, they're tight because of the times they lived together but they're not close since they all have such different lives now. They took us to their place and made us dinner and we had a few drinks, tried some Argentinian Marlborough blasts hehe they were hella tight.

As soon as they left mum went into a mad cleaning craze until 5am. I was so tired =( we'd been up since 7am running errands in Santiago + the flight o.o

Friday morning after like 4 hours sleep mum woke me up and she went and got us some bread/stuffs. We had a masssssive argument, there was crying and yelling and her saying she was flying back to sydney. *sigh* it was horrible. Then we went into town and kinda wondered. But we very quickly ran into people mum knew, she has mad hook ups haha. It was a nice day, we went by my 2nd cousins place but she wasn't home D= and then my grand-uncle but he wasn't home either! So we went and walked in the CBD and we visited the firefighters headquarters and chatted to the commander about the old times and how much they've advanced. Went past some awesome churches and saw a lot of street graffiti, ran into an old friend from when I was younger. Got the best fucking pisco sour's at La Recova and bought the hecticest vase xD

We chilled with one of the brothers again, the one mums closer to. He was/is chile's longest incarcerated political prisoner from the time of the dictatorship. He has the maddest stories D=

Today, Saturday we haven't done heaps. We had breakfast, did grocery shopping, set up in the apartment and now we're getting lunch/dinner. Despite not doing much yet, I saw a lot. It was fun grocery shopping here. It's like half price and alco/cigs are like a 1/4 of the price.

Anyway restaurant time. Mum really shits me. I really dislike a lot about her, I wanna move out when I come back and reestablish a job and have my p's *sigh* but save-ige of moneyyyyyy....
Geh

Ttyl!






- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Taxi

Thursday, September 5, 2013

7:30 PM

Yo. I'm on another plane, delayed. So I've been in Santiago two days now and it's one shitty thing after the next =.= Everything's fine and has been working itself out, it's just ridiculously tiring going through the drama with mum, mostly because shes the one causing it but also because she just doesn't handle it well and refuses to acknowledge it's mostly her fault. I guess I don't need her to acknowledge it, but as usual, she will blame everything and everyone else possible, including me.
Anyway the current sitch: we almost missed our domestic flights again =.= Well actually no, we DID miss our domestic flights.  Luckily the airline put us on another flight without any other additional costs and didn't even charge us extra for the ridic amount of excess baggage we have plus we only had to wait an hour for the replacement flight. The next problem however, is that there is some kind of "meterological" delay in La Serena (the town my family is from and where we are headed) so we have to wait an hour while sitting in the plane waiting for the captain to get a new weather report. I wonder what happens if it's not safe...do they usher us off the plane or do we just sit here and wait =S
At least these seats are more comfortable that the ones on the international flight.
Today hasn't been all bad though. I got to take some pics which i'll attach later. I'm writing this on my laptop into 'wordPad' again, I'm not sure how much data is loaded onto my usb wifi stick thingo...or how quickly it will go if I'm uploading pics =(
Like I mentioned in my earlier post, we found my passport xD and got my Brazillian visa paperwork submitted so that was great. It was a sunnier start to the day but got real cloudy and smoggy after midday. We met up with my ..half grand uncle? lol my mum's mums half brother ^.^ I had only met him once before but I wanted to catch up at least quickly. He plays in the symphonic orchestra in Santiago and he lived in Brazil for 13 years plus he lives in one of the better suburbs in the capital and I wanted to take pics. He drove us to a nearby restaurant that was really pretty.
OH THE PLANES GONA TAKE OFF NOW. I'll keep going later.

TRACKBACK: hello! I've come back to add a few things from that day because I don't wanna mess up post chronology. I didn't bring my planner =( Im used to listing what I've done each day and now the next 4 months will be blank =(

For now I'll just post pics from my iPhone but will add camera ones later.




I forced mum to come down into the metro with me xD she freaked a little lol I wanted to check it out for me and Matt in December.




The buildings in Las Condes are hella pretty. Santiago in general, the buildings are all different from each other.




You can see the snow caps a bit xD *shittyphonepic*




The restaurant we went to in Nuñoa was heaps pretty! And massive, we got then 10min b4 they opened and the front was full of people waiting for doors to open. Could have easily sat over 100 people. Meats were delicious but plain in flavour, like they just let the meat speak for itself, just a really hella good steak on a plate and you ask for sides separately. I, however, am a fucktard and got the chicken which was absolutely subpar, the cheese was fucking plastic tasteless lump and the chicken was very close to being undercooked and the ham was too strong D= terrible.




The view from the domestic terminal, I think I got a shot of it with an actual camera where you can see the mountains a bit better ^.^

11:30 AM

FUCK YEAH bitches!
I'm finally in line to pay for my Brazilian visa. It's been a mess and we're almost in the clear!

We landed in Santiago yesterday, went straight to the consulate and they rejected us =.= so we decided to stay the night here in Chile's capital and try again in the morning. We lost our domestic flight and had to pay for a hostel, but hey, I need this shit, otherwise my entire tour with matty in December is useless and ill get stuck at the border o.o

BUT the drama wasn't over yet, because later that day in Santiago, mum lost my passport. Yeah. I was already pretty fucked because to get my visa I need to surrender my passport for a week and I have a couple domestic flights and I wasn't (still not officially) sure that I can fly with just my Aussie ID.

So my passport was missing, mum had been freaking alllll day even before that. Not a pleasant day to say the least. I'm surprisingly good at keeping it together when shit goes missing though. There was realistically only two places it could be and we had to wait until the next morning (today) to go check and thankfuck they had it!! So we ran off to the Brazilian consulate, did the paperwork, walked to the bank to pay the fee and now I'm back to hand it in <3 br="">
Happy days! Our domestic flight to our home town is tonight at 6pm and it's currently 11;12am. Checkout is midday but we're going to pay extra to leave our bags there until closer to the time, might try to go see a grand-uncle who lives near here today =)

So here's hoping they let me fly o.o we've spoke to two people now from the airline who said it "should be okay" which isn't a yes so I'm still expecting the worst. Good news is that my visa and passport will be ready to pick up in 7 days ( next Friday).

Internets been real good too ^.^ free wifi at the hostel and we bought one of those USB wifi stick thingys =)

I miss ash so much...and water. Bottled water here is so rank and I can't drink the tap water =.=

Haven't taken too many pics but the ones I have are mostly with my iPhone and pointnshoot. This city's pretty uggo, but sometimes you get a really nice view of the snow capped mountains XD




Can sorta see them from there. I'm standing outside the Brazilian consulate at the moment. This suburb is called Las Condes which is one of the posh suburb and is the business/banks district so we safe ^.^

Anyway, mums reached our uncle so looks like we're off to grab lunch with him =)

Post soon!
Xx


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

4:30 PM

Okay! So that took like 5mins of figuring out my laptop before getting this started. I'm currently sitting on the first of a ridic amount of planes I'm going to be travelling in for the next 4 months. According to the little monitor imbedded into the seat infront of me, we've already flown over Auckland  (lol whoops, I thought we had a stop over there, turns out it's a direct flight which is a first!) and have 9 hours and 27 mins until we land in Sanitago ^.^
Seeing as Im on the plane, I obvs don't have the net right now so I'm typing this into "WordPad" I've never heard of it, I only got this laptop like a week ago and I never bought Microsoft Office but I'm pretty happy with this program, looks similar to word and I can format shit, I was already resigned to having to type everything into Notepad. I'm not entirely sure how frequent these blog posts are going to be once I'm actually there, I haven't figured out how the internet is going to work for me there or how busy I'll be. Expect longer posts when Im in transit =)
Soooooo I can't remember the last time I posted in my blog but I can garantuee a fuckload has happened since. I finished my newgraduate contract about 2 weeks ago and althought I half-heartedly tried to roll over into the casual pool, I applied too late but tbh, with the way things have been the last 2 weeks there was no way I could have managed to take on even one shift and get everything done before this trip. I have been going mental, and I wish I was just using the term loosely but for cereal I've been cracking hard and fast. Too many personal issues as well as the stress of organising this trip last minute, trying to see everyone before I left, keeping friends and family happy, and dealing with my own insecurities that have been amplified with this trip. Luckily I have been so busy running errands that I haven't had too much time to really think so I've mostly kept the demons at bay until Monday night. *sigh* I was getting shit done, Mikel and Kurt were over for one last hang, unfortunatly I was busy pretty much the entire time trying to scan things and email and pack and organise. Then around 2am I finally gave up for the night and decided since I was being such a shit host I should at least hang with them for a little and holy fuck was that a mistake. I had my first ever anxiety attack...or well that's what Ash thinks it was when I explained how I felt to him. I've had moments before where I felt like I cracked and lost control, where my brain just flys off the handle and is racing at a million miles a second and every thought is negative, the difference though was the implications of all those thoughts. I've had it where I get stuck in a negative loop and I'm spiraling and I pretty much give up on life because I just don't know what to do anymore and it's tears non-stop for days at a time. This time was different, there were no tears, just fear attached to those negative ideas + my brain was insinerated, I couldn't focus, my mind was split. I kept having all these ridiculosuly intense thoughts at the same time. It's hard to explain..hmm like, one wave would be the fear of being alone and how could I ever have possibly thought that I could do this and hating myself, while at the same time freaking out over the concept of ideas and reality. I hate to say it but yup, plagued by the cliched illness of most 20 something year olds in western society, I was in the midst of an intense existential crisis, as well as freaking out over myself. My brain couldn't handle the enormity of those thoughts and the dicotomy of thinking about something so insignificant at the same time. It was just really intense though because I was so trapped in my mind that I couldn't verbalise all of it to mikel and Kurt. I couldn't stop shaking and I felt so completely disasociated in my own environment, I knew who I was and where I was and who the people were that I was talking to but none of it made sense. Everything felt foreign and scary, my home felt sinister and dark and even my friends felt unfamiliar. I didn't want to hurt Kurt's feelings but in those moments I just didn't understand who he was and why he was talking to me or why he was hugging me, he felt wrong too. Obviously there was still a part of me attempting to function because I remember keeping those feelings to myself because I knew he was trying to help me and I was being crazy and a burden. After about an hour of kurt trying to talk me down I finally managed to collect myself for long enough to tell Kurt thank you and sorry and for him to go to bed. As soon as he was gone though it came back in full swing. I couldn't stop shaking and I tried to settle myself and text ash in the hopes that he might reply and somehow fix things but he was asleep. I think it helped though, trying to be brave for him helped me settle. I didn't want him to feel bad in the morning if I had a full on freak attack and he wasn't around, so I tried to sooth his potential morning guilt by texting him that I was going to be okay, and it helped a little. I finally managed sleep at around 4:30am. I had to wake up early to get the last few errands done and I was so scattered. I felt really heavy and like if I thought too much about the ideas that were flooding my brain the night before I would lose it again. Luckily having so many things I had to do meant giving up just wasn't an option. I finally saw ash at like 7pm yesterday and I explained what happened to me and for the first time ever, he made me feel so completely safe. He really really helped. Ash goes through something similar occasionally and I guess, him identifying with those same feelings made me feel like it was going to be okay. Today though, I woke up feeling better. I kind of want to write out all the scary thoughts though, because I guess, those thoughts are always there at least a little but they had never presented themselves with such clarity before. Maybe one day.
With all my nervous fretting I haven't even given myself the chance to be excited for this trip. A lot of the time I would feel like I was expected to be super pumped but everything just sort of keeps happening. They're all just motions and I guess, part of me knows that. I've been overseas lots of times and it's never this amazinggggg time that changes everything for me. It's just another place and other people. Maybe the problem is more that at some point it became ingrained into me that I should be expected to feel certain ways about specific things. I never got super excited because this trip has been more of a problem than some kind of eye opening, life-changing adventure which is what everyone wants it to be. This was always my goal, to go travelling. I was meant to go straight after hsc but I never had enough money and the only reason I wanted to go was to get away from life and from home and to get to pretend that nothing matters and that I didn't have responsibilities to uphold. It was never about exploring and seeing something new, it was just to get away. And now? I'm not sure, now I think it was more about ticking off a checklist. Things that I should do..because I've been told that travelling is exciting and life changing or something along those lines. I don't have any specific interest in what I do or where I go, it sure made planning the trip easier though. I just booked shit according to my time and money constraints. As I started getting into the finer details of planning, the places I chose to go were chosen because that's where everyone says I should go and with practicality in mind. I guess what's meant to be exciting about travelling is getting the chance to potentially experience something new and amazing, the charm and allur of the unknown (which clearly can turn into fear and anxiety for me instead). I know I'm probably never going to get this chance again. Having the freedom to go for this long, the money to go. So many things done out of fear. Fear of losing an opportunity, the fear of missing out on an experience, the fear that I will grow old and stuck in one job for the rest of my life. Where does that fear even come from, why am I so scared of doing the same thing for so long, it's why I'm scared of marrige and children, being locked down into one pathway. Yet at the same time, I'm terrible at making those changes, forcing myself out of my comfort zones. I guess I do it though, I've done a lot of things I was scared of and I honestly don't know if that actually helps you grow and become a better person, or if it's just added grief and stress for the purposes of doing what I'm told is the correct course of action by society. FUCKME I sound like a tool. How did this happennnnnn.
I should be less depressing hey?
So the good stuff!
I've bought so much new gear xD (oh man my brains still flip flopping, now Im mad for being materialistic, I can't win). It makes me feel better because now I actually have something to show for working all year. I still haven't even figured out how much this trip is costing me, I'll work it out at the end I guess but I know I've already dropped at least $10,000.

I'm excited to hopefully reconnect with family on my dad's side. It's a little awks though, I've never been tight with them seeing as my parents have been seperated since I was 5 and they live in Chile. I'm hoping my spanish isn't too sped and that they don't think I'm a freak. The last time I saw them I didn't really speak to my cousins =( I'm hoping this time it will be different, that I actually have the balls to talk to them...that it isn't wierd *sigh* I'm so shit at interacting with people sometimes.
I'm nervous about being alone on those group/contiki tours I'm doing. I guess that's because I have a preconceived idea of what backpackers are like, and I am not one of them lol. I'm expecting carefree beautiful people who dont freak out over anything, who just want to party and live and have fun. As nice as that sounds, I can't help but be a ball of nerves constantly, I'm sooo awkward around certain people and I know it's completely my own fault, me judging them and expecting that they're going to see me a certain way and that's probably just me creating a self-fullfing prophecy lol. I'm an idiot.
I'm completely at a loss as to how the fuck I'm supposed to pack clothes for 3 months into a back pack, clothes that will need to take me through freezing cold temperatures and insufferable sweaty hot days. I've still got a month and a half to figure that out though lol.
THERE'S SO MANY BABIES AROUND ME.
 I should put my laptop away and maybe just watch some stuff. They have soooo much to choose from ^.^
Just 8 hrs and 14mins left o.o
xx

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